Erland Oye and Eirik Boe's voices cannon off each other appealingly enough on 'Boat Behind,' but the album drifts in the manner of nick Drake out-takes and by the time you've waded through 13 dawdling tracks, it's a struggle to recall any of them. [Nov 2009, p.109]

Kill is no great departure, but their sense of mischief and their genuine, Killers-esque power ensures staleness is kept at bay, while The Newark Airport Boogie (not their first airport tribute, incidentally) is bouncier than a spacehopper. [Feb 2010, p. 104]

Inspired by New York's Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, The BQE is an ambitious orchestration to accompany the film of the same name. [Dec 2009 p. 127]

Sadly, anybody hoping for Pavement's off-kilter melody and cryptic lyrics will be disappointed. [Dec 2009, p. 126]

But on his 14th album, this spiritual cowboy ("Home is where my horse is," he sings on Natural Forces) appears to have rediscovered his adolescent side. [Dec 2009, p. 119]

Staying true to a 20-year career of uncompromising extremity, it will take commitment to breach this seventh album's walls of noise. [Dec 2009, p. 113]

Some might find Issues a bit too strenuous ("I stand up to them and confront/While you choose to be a cunt, " claims Up) but as fans know, The Slits are meant to be full-on. [Dec 2009, p. 126]

Sometimes brillliant, but often baffling. [Nov 2009, p.107]

Presenting a more elegiac, frigid sound than recent albums, the songs, notably the Mogwai-meets-Morricone Make, show rhythmic agitation and conversing guitars finding resolution in horns and massed voices. [Jan 10, p. 119]

Espers' folk apocalypse is very now--and very welcome. [Dec 2009, p.112]

At times, this means overloading slight ideas, but when they get it right, as on the glorious 'Finish Line,' the results are irresitible. [Nov 2009, p.104]

Embryonic has a cloudy feel, full of hulking, malformed basslines, distorted drums, and melodies that circle without ever ascending. [Nov 2009, p.102]

But, alternating between the laughable and listenable, it's safe to say there's never been anything quite like the sound of him jollily croaking his way through Her Comes Santa Claus or Hark The Herald Angles Sing. [Jan 2010, p. 119]

Fluff, maybe, but very entertaining fluff. [Dec 2009, p. 115]

The best record of her life by some distance. [Jan 2010, p. 122]

It's like a broken radio stuck between frequencies, at once disorienting, woozy and supremely psychedelic. [Nov 2010, p.112]

Ditto's one-of-a-kind voice still bestrides everything, sometimes gutsy and soulful, sometimes oddly sweet. [Jul 2009, p.130]

Nothing if not consistent, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel's sixth studio album sounds effortlessly Air-like. [Nov 2009, p.110]

It's not his strongest, but facinating none the less. [Nov 2009, p.110]

Martsch's hitherto opaque lyrics are more revealing than normal, exposing sentiments of anger and loss. [Mar 2010, p.97]

It might be the best album Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill have put together since 1984's "Sparkle In The Rain." [Jun 2009, p.131]

Enjoyment of this LA tribute act's wilfully non-PC parody of '80s hair metal entirely correlates with one's familarity with Poison and Faster Pussycat's liking for double--often single-entendres. [Jul 2009, p.117]

Darkly funny and strangely beautiful. [Nov 2009, p.111]

This eclectic follow-up finds him embracing the diversity that made Sebadoh so exciting in the '90s.[ Nov 2009, p.101]

It's wall-of-noise stuff, but consistently they manage to either build a decent tune into the squall or else engage the listener through exhilarating power alone. [Nov. 2009, p.101]

Sad to say, The List is an overly polite, lifeless collection of tried and trusted country standards apparently recommended as required listening by her father back in 1973. [Dec 2009, p. 126]

This isn't quite their peak (not least since it seems to have been recorded in a shed next to a motorway), but when they hit their stride it's clear why they're so revered, most thrillingly on the anthem that is, 1,2,3, Partyy!, the stentorian Forget Yourself or the beguiling closer, Slow Faucet. [Jan 2010, p. 122]

Unashamedly English with a slightly mysterious undertow, the likes of Harvest Time and Graven wood recall Pink Floyd at their most pastoral. [Jan 2010,p. 126]